Ever wonder what happens to outgrown cleats, barely worn uniforms, and old soccer balls and equipment?

For most families, these items collect in basements and garages until our players leave for college. A plucky group of DC Stoddert soccer players has been putting gently used gear to good use, however. They are spearheading collection drives and equipping young players in Africa with the colorful jerseys and balls that dot Carter Barron and other DC-area fields on any given Saturday during fall and spring seasons.

U14 player Alexander Truitt is one such community-builder. The jerseys and equipment he and his family collected enabled the Red Rose School in Kibera, a sprawling slum in Nairobi, Kenya, to field its first youth soccer teams.(Read a Voice of America report about the school.) His cousin, Joscelyn, who works with the Kibera Children’s Foundation that supports the school, wrote to thank DC Stoddert Soccer for its donations. Here is her e-mail:

After months of hauling, organizing, and distributing, Red Rose School is finally able to form it’s first youth soccer team! Located in Nairobi, Kenya, Kibera is one of the world’s largest urban slums, occupied by close to one million people. Characterized by high rates of poverty, disease, and violence in addition to a crippled housing infrastructure, failing local schools, and no sanitation system, Kibera offers little to no opportunities for young people to engage in positive, extra-curricular activities.

Since it’s inception in 2006, Children of Kibera Foundation (CoKF) has dedicated it’s efforts to improving access to quality education for students in Kibera. A portion of CoKF’s efforts are focused on funding and restructuring the Red Rose School- an non-government, community elementary and middle school. This school runs from Baby Class (age 3) to Class 7 (seventh grade) and continues to expand each year due to the involvement of CoKF. As part of expanding and restructuring, CoKF staff have implemented several extracurricular activities to ensure students receive enrichment outside the classroom. In order to guide kids away from negative behaviors, such as drug use, gang violence, poor performance in school, or stealing, organizations like CoKF dedicate time and funding to forming clubs and teams to keep students focused and on track. Thanks to Stoddert’s Tom Gross and the U-14 boys and girls travel teams who donated used and new gear, Red Rose now operates a boys and girls soccer team for students ages 9-13. The two teams practice twice weekly at a local field located next to the Red Rose Middle School. The teams have yet to compete as part of a league, but are itching at a chance to test their skills against other local teams. The students have only begun to learn basic skills, like passing, shooting, goal keeping, etc, but are quickly gelling as a team. We hope to see them winning tournaments very soon!

Children of Kibera Foundation and Red Rose School would like to send a sincere thank you to all the Stoddart families who have donated uniforms, shoes, socks, and shin guards, and especially to U-14 player Alexander Truitt and his family who collected and organized all donations.